Foodpanda is selling its Indonesia business and rethinking the rest of Southeast Asia

Foodpanda, the food delivery startup backed by Rocket Internet, is selling its operations in Indonesia and evaluating its presence in the rest of Southeast Asia as part of a push towards profitability.

Multiple sources close to the company told TechCrunch that its business in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous country, is available to potential acquirers for less than $1 million — and an all-cash deal isn’t even a requirement. Foodpanda, which is active in 500 cities across five continents worldwide, has slashed the asking price for its Indonesia operations to basically zero after more than a year of unsuccessfully trying to offload it, one source added.

Foodpanda provided the following statement which, if you strip out the grandiose terms, does hint at transactional activity up ahead:

Foodpanda has grown very fast in Southeast Asia over the last couple of months and strengthened its market leading position in the region. Driven by our increased dominance in the region we have experienced interest from a variety of different parties to partner or to invest which we are evaluating now.

One source close to Foodpanda added that Jakarta’s challenging traffic congestion and a lack of infrastructure have added complexities.

Reviewing regional presence

Foodpanda is actively seeking to cash out of Indonesia, but that may not be its only exit from Southeast Asia. TechCrunch understands from a source that the company is reevaluating its entire business across the region, and it has already made tentative efforts to sell in some countries. The company expanded in Asia via a series of acquisitions, which, in many cases, ironically leaves it without obvious suitors.

News of its reassessment of Southeast Asia comes just weeks after Foodpanda co-founder and CEO Ralf Wenzel claimed that the company is profitable in two of its markets — Europe and the Middle East — but not Asia.

“Over the next couple of months we will turn break-even and then profitable in the first Southeast Asian countries,” Wenzel added.

While the Foodpanda CEO claimed profitability in Asia is “just a matter of scale,” our sources said that discarding under-performing units — which Wenzel did not mention — is a very key part of the plan.

Challenging investment climate

Foodpanda raised $210 million last year — including a $100 million injection from Goldman Sachs and a separate $110 million round — but the climate for investment is tougher now. One source close to Rocket Internet told us that the venture builder is not optimistic about landing capital for many of its older, more capital-intensive businesses, including Foodpanda.